Black Theatre Troupe needed headshots for its full company. Not one actor at a time across a season, but everyone, in a single sitting, looking like they belong to the same production.
That is a different job from photographing one person, and most of the work happens before anyone steps in front of the camera.
The setup gets built once and then nothing moves. Lighting, background, camera height, framing, all locked. The temptation on a shoot this size is to tune each person a little. Soften this one, brighten that one. Give in to it and you end up with a set of portraits that look like they came from a different photographer every time. On a cast shoot, consistency is not a stylistic preference. It is the deliverable.
Everyone in black against a black background sounds like a recipe for mud. It does the opposite. With color and clothing stripped out, the frame has nowhere to go except the face. It also lets a company of very different people read as a single ensemble, which is what a season of marketing actually needs.
The setup is fast so the people do not have to be. Everyone gets enough frames to get past the stiff opening ones, which is usually where the usable expression starts. Actors have an advantage here. Being looked at is the job.
We photograph the full company group while everyone is still in the building. Getting a whole cast's schedules aligned once is hard enough. Twice is a fantasy.
What the theater walks away with is one set that works everywhere at once. The program, the lobby boards, the website, the season announcement, the press kit. Same light, same background, same crop, nothing borrowed.
If you run a theater, a company or a team that needs everyone photographed to one standard, it is the same work, run the same way.